A Study Of The Correlation Between English Postgraduates’ Implicit/Explicit Grammatical Knowledge Of English And Language Learning Strategies

Implicit and explicit L2 knowledge are two important constructs in the studies of Second Language Acquisition.In order to establish a unified model of L2 knowledge,R.Ellis(2005)proposed a battery of tests to measure the two knowledge types in a separate way.The findings of the previous studies show that implicit and explicit L2 knowledge are two different components existing in L2 learners’ linguistic knowledge system.To elaborate on the model,a few studies took individual differences into consideration to figure out different contributions of learner variables to the acquisition and the development of L2 linguistic knowledge.Based on previous researches,the present study mainly focuses on the correlation between implicit/explicit grammatical knowledge and language learning strategies.The main purpose is to explore whether language learning strategies,as individual differences,are significantly correlated to implicit and explicit L2 grammatical knowledge.Three research questions are addressed below:(1)To what extent is English postgraduates’ implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge of English?(2)What is the frequency of the language learning strategies used by English postgraduates?(3)What is the correlation between English postgraduates’ implicit/explicit grammatical knowledge of English and language learning strategies?Forty-five students were invited to participant in the study.They were Chinese postgraduates majoring in English and had learnt English in an EFL context for at least ten years.An implicit grammatical knowledge test(the Elicited Imitation Test)and an explicit grammatical knowledge test(the Untimed Grammaticality Judgment Test)were employed to measure the subjects’ implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge of English.Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning was used to test learners’ use of the six language learning strategies,i.e.,memory strategies,cognitive strategies,compensation strategies,metacogntive strategies,affective strategies,and social strategies.The findings can be summarized as follows:Firstly,Chinese postgraduates of English have acquired much more explicit grammatical knowledge than implicit grammatical knowledge.They have not internalized their explicit knowledge of English into implicit knowledge to a great extent.Secondly,Chinese postgraduates of English apply the language learning strategies in such a descending order: metacognitive strategies,cognitive strategies,social strategies,compensation strategies,affective strategies,and memory strategies.While metacognitive strategies are used at a high frequency level,other strategies are only used at a medium frequency level.Thirdly,in terms of implicit grammatical knowledge,it is moderately correlated to cognitive strategies,metacogntive strategies,and social strategies.A weak correlation also exists between implicit grammatical knowledge and memory strategies.However,only one correlation is found for explicit grammatical knowledge.Explicit grammatical knowledge is only moderately correlated to cognitive strategies,but it is non-significantly correlated to other five language learning strategies.Significant relationships found are all positive.The implications of those findings can be found for EFL learning and teaching.It implies that foreign language teachers should pay much attention to creating more opportunities to help students practice in the target language.Guidance should also be given to students in increasing the frequency of applying the language learning strategies during L2 learning process.